The Defended Covered Bridge
Near Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Where you cross the Black Warrior River between Northport and Tuscaloosa, a covered bridge once stood, and in the spring of eighteen sixty-five it was the scene of a hopeless, stubborn last stand. Union General John Croxton's brigade of veteran cavalrymen was sweeping into Tuscaloosa to burn the university. Guarding the bridge was the Tuscaloosa Home Guard, a small band of old men and young boys led by a captain named Benjamin Eddins.
When the warning bell rang from the Methodist church, they tore up part of the bridge flooring to slow the enemy and fired their single-shot weapons at troopers armed with seven-shot carbines. They could not hold. Croxton's men took the bridge, and on April fourth burned most of the University of Alabama, including its great library in the Rotunda, despite a professor's pleas to spare it.
